Validating Web Pages

Web pages are written in either HTML or XHTML. HTML/XHTML have various formatting/syntax rules that should be followed to ensure that the web page will be viewed correctly in a web browser.

Most of us create web pages using a web page editor like FrontPage, NVu, Trellian WebPage, which may, or may not, produce 100% valid HTML/XHTML.

Now editor developers don't do this deliberately but web standards change,and so its very easy to find an editor that did produce perfectly valid HTML/XHTML, suddenly, because of new standards, now  produces not so valid HTML/XHTML.

Web Browsers and Standards

Web browsers are usually very tolerant of invalid HTML/XHTML formatting mistakes and so simply being able to view  a web page in a web browser doesn't mean that the web page is 100% valid.

Also just because the web page display correctly in one browser doesn't mean that it will display correctly in all browsers.

So What if my Web Page is not 100% Valid?

Well the answer is usually if a web browser like Internet explorer displays it correctly then the search engines will also be able to read it and index it correctly, and in short, it usually make no difference!

However the fact that it usually makes no difference doesn't mean that you should just ignore web page validation.

How to Validate

The most important page on your website is your template page. The template should be validated using the online wc3 online validation tool. Now this tool is very picky and wont even look at your webpage unless it has a valid Doctype declaration.

If your web page editor doesn't put one in then you will need to add it manually to the template.

Once the template is 100% valid then I personally validate approximately 1 in 10 pages. If you editor has an in built validation tool then you should validate them all.

Most validation tools will give errors and warning you can usually ignore the warnings but should fix the errors.

The tool I personally use is the free CSE html validator.

Existing Invalid Web Pages

A dilemma many new web publishers face is that they only learn about HTML validation after they have already put the web pages online. So they check them and find them full of errors! What should they do?

Well first of all you would be amazed at how many web pages have syntax errors and don't validate 100%, even web page of, so called, "authority sites".

If your web pages have been indexed and are being found by people searching then I would just leave them. If I needed to edit them for some reason I would fix the errors then.

 If they aren't being indexed (remember it can take months) then I would fix the errors as that may be causing it (in my experience this is unlikely).

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